I was always an early riser. Happy the man who is! Every morning day comes to him with a virgin's love, full of bloom and freshness. The youth of nature is contagious, like the gladness of a happy child.

The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.

There is an ill-breeding to which, whatever our rank and nature, we are almost equally sensitive, the ill-breeding that comes from want of consideration for others.

There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men's deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.

Only by the candle, held in the skeleton hand of Poverty, can man read his own dark heart.

Come, Death, and snatch me from disgrace.

We lose the peace of years when we hunt after the rapture of moments.